Author Archive
retinue of
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saturday the 18th of June, my trick left foot was singing a song. Baleful and rich with lament, this arthritic melody informed my night’s journey and thereby I decided that it would be a fantastic evening to “ride the train.” Accordingly, my toes were painfully oriented in the direction of Queens Boulevard from Astoria.
That’s the Standard Motor Products building, whose frontage is on Northern Boulevard at Steinway Street. There’s an urban farm up on the roof, which is just plain old cool.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Steinway Street becomes 39th Street when it crosses Northern Boulevard and passes over the Sunnyside Yards, but to members of the cult of historical specificity here in Western Queens – this section of 39th street will always be known as the “Harold Avenue Truss Bridge.”
Nerd.
The sunset was setting up nicely, and it seemed like I had actually timed things right for once.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Queens Boulevard, a Manhattan bound 7 line subway was coursing along its tracks. My plan was simple, and it involved hopping on and off of the 7 line between Queensboro Plaza and somewhere east of there. At some convenient point, I’d transfer down onto one of the underground lines which move through the 46th street stop nearby HQ in Astoria.
It was a warm night, and somewhat humid in Long Island City. My name is Waxman, I live here and I carry a camera. Dum de dum, dum.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Queensboro Plaza, there are two iconic shots always available for the passing photography enthusiast to gather. One revolves on variations of the shot above, depicting a Manhattan bound 7 line train entering the lower level of the station.
I should mention, a recent update of the software on my camera introduced a “vehicle tracking” feature for autofocus into my tool kit, and I’m currently working out the nuances of the new feature.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other “iconic” subway shot at Queensboro Plaza is found at the extreme end of the platform, where the Flushing bound trains make their turn into the station on the high elevated steel of Queens Plaza, with the old Silvercup Bakeries signage in the background.
Figured I’d do a portrait format one for a change. I’ve been trying to remind myself to do this more often these days – turn the camera 90 degrees.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I began hopping on and off at various stations and popping out train photos for about an hour. On the 7, at least, ridership seems to be back to pre Covid levels.
Tomorrow- something different at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
impious amulets
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
June 15th found me taking a walk with an artist from Brooklyn, a fellow named Monte Antrim, who has been bitten by the Newtown Creek bug in recent years. I offered to take him on a “seeing tour” and introduce a few of the less obvious points of view for his consideration.
We started off in Long Island City, and ended our excursion at a bar in Bushwick – long after sunset.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, it was kind of a “snap shot” day for me. I didn’t want to get busy with the camera in the normal sense, and was mainly in tour guide mode for most of the walk.
From LIC, we headed eastwards along the Queens side, through Blissville and then into Maspeth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When we got to Maspeth, the sound of FDNY sirens were echoing down from the Kosciuszcko Bridge, and there was a plume of smoke rising out of Greenpoint.
I speculated at the time that it was probably a truck or car fire, but as it turns out a furniture manufacturer on Van Dam had suffered a two alarm fire.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over at Maspeth Creek, these feathered dicks were loitering on the sidewalk. Newtown Creek and its tributaries are overrun these days by Canada Geese. So much so that I’ve learned to speak a little goose.
NAAAAAG.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road, even more of these dicks were encountered, including a bunch of youngsters.
NAAAAAAG.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We crossed Newtown Creek into Brooklyn at the Grand Street Bridge, just as the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself descended behind New Jersey.
My trick left foot was singing opera for the second half of this walk, I must say. Ow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
nebulous shadow
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
June 14th found a humble narrator in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section for a Newtown Creek Alliance board meeting. What happens at this sort of meeting is that the group’s Executive Director discusses their ongoing management of the organization’s various projects, the financial state of the entity, and then makes the board members aware of any issues they’ve encountered. The board members then weigh in on whatever the issue is, offer guidance or material help, and we vote on “this” or discuss “that.” The meeting took place in the evening, and we were at HQ at 520 Kingsland Avenue in Brooklyn for sunset and moonrise.
I snuck away a couple of times to wave the camera around.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was coincidentally one of the nights where a so called “supermoon” was meant to occur, which is an astronomical anomaly wherein the position of the moon relative to the horizon creates an optical lensing effect that makes the moon seem larger and brighter than it typically is. Next one is in July, I think.
There’s the so called “Strawberry Supermoon” rising over the fabulous Newtown Creek, from the Kingsland Wildflower Roof at 520 Kingsland Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once the meeting ended, and since I was already in the neighborhood, a humble narrator got busy down on the industrial streets surrounding Newtown Creek. The guy who couldn’t help but stand in the middle of my shot was Donnie, a security guard for a recycling company owned by a guy named Mike, and Donnie was desperately waiting for his “Doordash” dinner delivery.
What can I tell you, I talk to strangers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of what would be North Henry Street is a small barge slip, called “Unnamed Canal” by the Coast Guard, and I was lucky enough to be there when the Crystal Cutler tug was towing a fuel barge eastwards on Newtown Creek. If you click through to the high res version of the shot at Flickr, you’ll see the silhouette of the Captain in the wheelhouse, who may or may not have been named Bruce Cutler.
I’m very pleased with myself, regarding the shot above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On my way back to Queens, I decided to get a bit “artsy fartsy” with the sewer plant views. This is one of the shots where I captured three distinct images with different focus points – at distinct moments in the rotating “red, white, blue” colors that the DEP projects onto the stainless steel digester eggs. I’m pleased with myself about this shot too.
After this one, I switched the rig back into handheld mode and started scuttling back towards Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While crossing Newtown Creek via the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, I noticed the MTA’s “Bus of the Dead” rolling up on me, no doubt heading to Calvary Cemetery with its spectral riders. Wonder if they’ve got a fare evasion problem on this line? Wonder if the Mayor can send out a group of ghost cops if they do.
Back tomorrow with more…
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
torn to
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sunset at Fresh Kills on… Staten Island…
As described yesterday, an invitation from the NYC Parks Dept. saw me and my pal Val travel all the way out to the western edge of the known universe to record the scene. This was part of their “Capturing Change” program, which I last got to participate in back in 2014. Remember 2014? Back then, the notion that America might descend into a Civil War at any second was the stuff spoken about by lunatics.
That’s one of my fancy pants shots above, by the way. There’s about six individual captures combined in that one. The wind was whipping the grass about, all that. Different exposures for fore and background…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, you know how I’ve been telling you for the last thirteen years that the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself disappears into a pocket behind New Jersey?
PROOF! Photographic proof.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the trash caldera of Fresh Kills, with its extreme elevation, you get some pretty epic views. Go wide or go telephoto? What’s the subject? What do I want the image to say? What’s in frame?
That’s the actual thought process I filter through each and every time I hit the shutter button.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m glad I got to do this, and have to throw a major kudo at my pal Val, who did a heroic amount of driving through pretty heavy traffic to get us out here. It’s astounding how close Queens’ Astoria is to Fresh Kills on… Staten Island… it’s only 38 miles. Saying that, it took us close to two hours to get out here due to traffic.
As I’ve mentioned, I’m planning on leaving the City at the end of the year. One of the things which I’m having trouble equating is what distance vs. time means in the rest of the country.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By the time you’re reading this (it’s being written in mid June), I’ve been to Pittsburgh and back again. On that trip, which occurred during the third week of June, I drove from Pittsburgh to Youngstown in Ohio, and then to Wheeling in West Virginia, and back to Pittsburgh in about three hours. Literally a hundred and change miles, crossed in about one third more of the time it took us to go just 38 local miles here in NYC.
I could tell you how to fix the traffic here in NYC, within 20 years, with a moderate governmental investment – but nothing matters and nobody cares – and “bike lanes” and “affordable housing.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the event, we piled into Val’s car and headed back into the thick of things at the center of the archipelago metropolis which is the center of the East Coast Megalopolis.
Back next week with something completely different, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
baffling as
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
…Staten Island… sits at the risible edge of the known universe. An event horizon congeals just beyond its western shore. Here – you are existent upon the archipelago, found at the heart of the East Coast Megalopolis, which is known as New York City. On the other side of this existential barrier, which is mercifully demarcated by the waters of the Arthur Kill, is found the continent – and America.
Fresh Kills used to be the largest manmade object on the planet, but I think Three Gorges Dam in China wears that crown now. From 1948 to 2001, this was where the archipelago metropolis buried its waste. When you see pipes sticking up out of the ground here, it’s to vent off the methane gas produced by the decaying firmament below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Much of the vegetation that grows here is self seeded, I’m told. The Parks Dept. people have – of course – been guiding the evolution of the place with specific plantings and earthworks. There’s roads, for instance, and wetlands. The roads we were driving on were gravel.
The last time I was at Fresh Kills – described in these 2014 posts: old garden, grassy bank, and shewing much – the procedure saw us leave the private cars outside of the park’s borders in a lot, and then we moved around the place in a Parks Dept. Van. This time around, because of Covid, the private cars were allowed inside the border and we followed the Parks employees from place to place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That power plant on the horizon is in New Jersey, which is found across the Arthur Kill. In 2019, I got to ride along Arthur Kill with the United States Army Corps of Engineers on one of their harbor inspection operations, as detailed in this post – magnitude of. The fourth image in that post, depicting a tugboat in front of a grassy mound, imparts an idea of how high an elevation Fresh Kills offers. The shot above is more or less captured from that area.
The section of New Jersey that’s found along the Arthur Kill is the part of I-95 where you roll your car windows up when you’re driving through, due to all of the petroleum processing plants there and their stink. It’s colloquially known as “The Chemical Coast.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All told, we had about 90 minutes to get busy up here with the cameras. There were probably about 10-12 of us, all photographers. As is the case with people who obsess about cameras, there was very little in the way of conversation while the light was good. Everybody was a “clickin and a whirring” with their gizmos.
The Department of Sanitation still maintains some operations here, as a note. The reason that there are hills and valleys is due to how they historically tipped out municipal garbage. When Parks entered the mix back in 2001, layers of clay and composted soil were brought in which began the process of creating the modern day landscape at Fresh Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Kill” is Old Dutch for “creek,” which is why you see it all over the maps of NYC’s waterways. They used to call Newtown Creek “Mispat Kill,” for instance, and the naming convention stuck into the English speaking period with English Kills and Dutch Kills. Staten Island has Arthur Kill and Kill Van Kull and Fresh Kills.
In the distance, that’s the newly constructed Goethals Bridge over Arthur Kill. Just beyond it is a railroad bridge, which connects the NY Container Terminal at Port Ivory to Port Elizabeth’s Liberty Line tracks in Bayonne nearby Newark Airport.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Parks people designed the 90 minute excursion to give us roughly 20-30 minutes each at three locations. That gave me time to pull off some “fancy pants” shots with tripod and filters.
More tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 